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TIMELY TOPICS 



I Democracy and Its Limitations 

II The Constitution and the League 
of Nations 

III The Costly Benefits of War 

IV The Return of Peace 
V The New Era 

VI The New Era in Higher Education 



By T. W. HUNT 

Princeton, N. J. 



■^ 



DEMOCRACY AND ITS LIMITATIONS 



... \9W 



Democracy and Its Limitations 



Thirty years ago, Professor Fiske published a volume 
under the title — "The Critical Period in American History." 
If, at that date, the conditions were critical what shall be 
said of the America of to-day, at the close of the World 
War! It is the world as a whole that has arrived at the 
most critical era in its history. So momentous have been 
the evolutions and revolutions of the last decade that they 
are nothing less than dramatic and that on the side of trag- 
edy. History has become histrionic. 

Toi examine these pending and confusing issues in a 
judicial and dispassionate temper demands the wisdom of 
the wisest. The world is at its crisis and the crisis must 
be met. Two or three fundamental considerations may be 
cited : 

I 

THE DEMOCRATIC INSTINCT 

The word, democratic, is here used in its etymological and 
generally accepted sense, of the rule of the people. Among 
the "inalienable rights" with which men as men are en- 
dowed, liberty is an indispensable one and never can be 
safely surrendered. It is, indeed, more than an endow- 
ment. It is an instinct in peoples of all eras and races and 
from the dawn of history has insisted upon its presence and 
expression. Whatever may be said of the divine right of 
kings, the divine right of peoples is a prior one to which 
the assumptions of kings must give way as they are now 
doing, perforce, the civilized world over. Herein, lies the 
origin of what by various names we call, Representative 
Government "of and by and for the people," what Maine, in 
his suggestive work calls, "Popular Government," what Mr. 
Bryce calls, "The Commonwealth," where the ultimate ob- 
ject of government is the common weal. At times it is 
known as Parliamentary Government. This is what is 

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4 Democracy and Its Limitations 

meant in English History by the Rise of The People, as 
expressed in the thirteenth century in the Magna Charta of 
British Rights. It is this ineradicable instinct which from 
the days of the ancient empires has protested against abso- 
lute monarchy, and which has been the occasional cause of 
every Epoch of Reform in church and state. Its voice, if 
stifled for a time, will reassert itself with redoubled vigor 
and will eventually be heard above the loudest din of 
despotism. It is needless to assert that in the American 
Nation this instinct for freedom has had, and will ever have, 
fullest expression. 

The American ''Declaration" is a ''Declaration of Inde- 
pendence." The avowal that "all men are created equal" 
before the law and stand at the outset upon a common plane 
of privilege is a fundamental avowal of American political 
belief. In this belief may be found the spirit and innermost 
character of democracy as exemplified in the Western 
World, affecting all phases of its life, civic, social, educa- 
tional, economic and religious. From the revolutionary 
days of 1776 on through the tragic era of the Civil War 
( 1 861 -1 865) this divine-human instinct has made its pres- 
ence known and felt. It is this that Draper in his "Civic 
Polity in America" has emphasized, as President Wilson 
and Mr. Fiske have done in their varied contributions to 
our national history. Indeed it is not too much to say that 
the mission of America to the world is to reveal the potency 
and primacy of this insatiable craving for civic freedom. It 
is the primary justification of her existence as a people. If 
she fails here, she fails completely and must at length give 
place to other nationalities which can make the mission suc- 
cessful. 

II 

THE LIMITATION OF DEMOCRACY 

Here we reach an essential principle in the exposition and 
application of Democracy as a method of government, that 
it be under the constant dominance of conscience and law. 
Montesquieu in his "Bsprit des Lois" was one of the first 



Democracy and Its Limitations 5 

political authors to state and elucidate this principle. The 
Democratic Instinct must be safeguarded by the higher rule 
of reason and right. It is in this way only that the world 
can be made ''safe for democracy" or democracy safe for 
the world. There is no more dangerous political theory than 
that of unconditioned freedom in the state, — a freedom of 
civic polity unhampered by statute and national restriction, 
from which arise revolutions inside and outside the state. 
This is the theory that has begotten a direful brood of 
descendants, such as Populism, and that order of St)cialism 
by which the Golden Age of the Proletariat is to be ushered 
in. Here we are told that the redemption of the world 
draweth nigh. 

It is this divorce between liberty and law, between a true 
and a false democracy that has produced the tragic condi- 
tions of the last half decade of European history and which 
at this moment threatens the very life of nations. Limited 
democracy is the only possible civic order between despotic 
rule on the one hand, and rampant anarchy on the other, by 
which monarchy is so' democratized and democracy so regu- 
lated as to secure a safe and sane governmental regime. 
What such standard writers as Hallam and Stubbs call Con- 
stitutional Government is of this stable and conservative lib- 
erty under control. It is just here that we find the best 
justification of Limited Monarchy as exemplified in Eng- 
land, an order of civic rule that may just as appropriately 
be called Limited Democracy, and which as thus interpreted 
is regarded by many students of government as the ideal 
order for a state. Whether America has or has not worthily 
fulfilled this theory is a question of cardinal and present 
interest for whose answer the world is waiting. 

Mr. Bryce, in his ''American Commonwealth," devotes 
no little space to this vital question as to what are the "Sup- 
posed Faults" and the "True Faults" of D'emocracy in 
America, concluding, however, and as we think, wisely, that 
all defects conceded, Representative Government in the 
United States is, in the main, a successful political experi- 
ment, especially confirmed when we contrast it with the 
existing governments of Continental Europe. From the 
days of the Revolution on through the Civil War and down 



6 Democracy and Its Limitations 

to the present this vital principle has been steadily growing, 
permeating every phase and function of national life and be- 
getting the confident belief that, in due time, existing defects 
will be substantially remedied and an order of government 
will emerge as nearly ideal as the essential limitations of 
human nature will permit. The imperfections cited by Bryce, 
such as — rapidly shifting public opinion, the tendency to 
level all distinctions, the overbearing demands of majority 
rule, — these and similar faults are not beyond correction, 
so that a political result is possible more satisfactory than 
as yet has been realized among men. In fine, a conservative 
liberty and a liberal conservatism will afford the best solution 
of governmental polity. The democratic instinct will per- 
sist and when safeguarded by wholesome political restraint, 
will justify its claims as the best possible order. 

Here is seen The World Ideal as from the days of the 
Greek and Roman Republics on through the Reformations 
and Revolutions of Modern Europe in England and France, 
in Italy and Holland and other States, it has sought un- 
ceasingly for an adequate expression and will not be denied. 
This, after all, is the deeper meaning of the World War 
just ended — the titanic and desperate and final struggle be- 
tween the rule of despots and the rule of the people, a strug- 
gle well worth the stupendous price that has been already 
paid to secure it. The great World Commonalty demands 
a hearing in the open forum of public opinion, a demand that 
will be heard and answered, for it is the voice of God ar- 
ticulated in human terms. 

The Parliament of Man is now in session as never before 
and no motion to adjourn will be entertained until the im- 
perative business before the House — the free federation of 
the World, is fully and satisfactorily transacted. The 
solemn duty of the hour is to realize this great democratic 
ideal. The cry for Freedom, a safely guarded and beneficent 
freedom, is in the air ringing clearly out above the sound 
of all competing voices. To make ''the bounds of freedom 
wider yet" is the call; to enfranchise all enslaved peoples; 
to rebuke tyranny and anarchy in high places, and thus to 
bring in, as speedily as possible, the Kingdom of Man on 
earth. 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND THE 
CONSTITUTION 



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The League of Nations and the Constitution 



In reading recently the biographies of Madison, Jefferson 
and Hamihon we have been especially interested in noting 
under what apparently unsurmountable difficulties the Con- 
stitution of the country was formulated, adopted and rati- 
fied, and how, in the end, those who had more or less 
strenuously opposed it, at the outset, surrendered their 
personal opinions in the interests of peace, and on the 
ground of patriotism voted for its adoption as presented. 
Nor did this mean that they came to regard the document 
at length as free from imperfections and grave objections, 
but that viewing it as sound in its fundamental elements and 
capable of modification and improvement as the years went 
on, they acceded to its provisions as in the main desirable 
and feasible, and were willing to give its questionable 
features the benefit of the doubt and test its excellence by 
putting it at once into actual operation. 

Thus Madison, as we read, just before the Convention 
adjourned wrote to Jefiferson : ''I hazard an opinion that 
the plan, should it be adopted, will not effectively answer its 
national object," and yet, as his biographer adds, he saw, 
''in looking at it as a whole, how just and true it was in its 
fair proportions." From that time he gave himself heartily 
to its adoption, believing that upon its adoption, despite its 
imperfections, ''depended whether there should be, or 
should not be, a nation." 

So, as to Jefferson, we read : "There are in the document 
things which stagger all my disposition to subscribe to 
what such an assembly has proposed," and then he adds, "I 
look forward to the general adoption of the new Constitu- 
tion with anxiety and as necessary for us under our present 
circumstances. 

"Probably every prominent man among the Federalists 
could, in his own opinion, have suggested improvements, 
hoping that a favorable moment will come for correcting 
what is amiss in it." 

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lo League of Nations and the Constitution 

So, as to Hamilton, whose position relative to the pro- 
posed Constitution is full of interest and timely suggestion. 
Hamilton, as is well known, went so far as to prepare and 
propose a plan of his own in place of the Constitution 
offered to the Convention. For this plan he zealously con- 
tended until he saw that it was in vain and then, as his 
biographer. Senator Lodge, tells us, ''gave his loyal adher- 
ence to the new Constitution" as to which Senator Lodge 
significantly writes : "Had he been an agitator, a visionary 
and an idealist, he would have stood up against this Con- 
stitution which was not what he wanted. As he was none 
of these things but a patriotic man of clear and practical 
mind, he knew that the first rule of successful and bene- 
ficial statesmanship was not to sulk because one cannot have 
just what one wants, but to take the best thing obtainable 
and sustain it to the uttermost. In the Constitution, how- 
ever imperfect he might think it, he saw a vast improve- 
ment, and for the successful working of it he prepared to 
labor with all his strength." 

Such was the attitude of Madison, Jefferson and Hamil- 
ton relative to the Constitution as proposed, an attitude so 
thoroughly endorsed by Senator Lodge in his able biogra- 
phy of Alexander Hamilton. The attitude of these leaders 
of national thought is most significant, and it would be 
well for the captious and even the candid and conscientious 
critics of the proposed League of Nations to examine and 
imitate it. Opposition to the League is expressed by Sena- 
tors Lodge, Borah, Reed and others in terms and forms 
singularly similar to that expressed by Hamilton and others 
as to the Constitution, and it is for them, we submit, to fol- 
low the example of their more illustrious predecessors, and 
in the language of Lodge "not to sulk because one cannot 
have just what one wants, but to take the best thing obtain- 
able and sustain it to the uttermost." Consistency is a 
jewel, even though it is exhibited by a Senator. 

These Senatorial censors know, or ought to know, that 
the fundamental principles underlying the League are sound 
and tenable ; "that it constitutes nothing less than a world 
settlement," and is therefore too wide in its scope to be 
viewed simply from Massachusetts or Idaho. It is the 



Lkague of Nations and the Constitution ii 

product of international conference and needs and deserves 
an international mind to examine, appreciate and interpret 
it, and at no stage in American history has a surer test been 
applied to the senatorial mind as to whether it is local and 
provincial only or big enough and broad enough to think 
and reason continentally. Moreover, these persistent and 
obstinate objectors fail to remember that they are repre- 
senting the leading democracy of the world, and that this 
League has been formulated mainly because "free govern- 
ment is likely everywhere to be imperilled," and for this 
reason, if for no other, they should be willing to minimize 
its imperfections and emphasize its merits. It is not strange 
that President Wilson in his superb address on the Treaty 
stresses this particular point and states that "the compul- 
sion was upon us who represented America at the peace 
table" to be true to this high democratic ideal on behalf of 
the oppressed nations of the world. It is as pathetic as it is 
tragic to watch how the enslaved peoples of Europe have 
been waiting on the word of the great republic over the sea, 
and we submit that in the light of this attitude of expect- 
ancy this international League should be viewed in its 
broadest outlines and outlook as the supremest attempt yet 
made to democratize the world, "America has," indeed, 
reached her majority as a world power, and national sover- 
eignty itself must be viewed and maintained in the light of 
international ideals and interests. Not to ratify this League 
would, as the President has solemnly stated it, "break the 
world's heart." Certainly it would break its hope and cast 
the course of history back a thousand years. "The stage is 
set, the destiny disclosed," and he is a wise legislator and 
citizen who under present conditions follows the example 
of Jefferson and Hamilton and subscribes to any great 
political covenant whose basic principles are sound, whose 
governing spirit is catholic and humane, and which, despite 
its imperfections, has within it the promise and potency of 
incalculable blessing to a world, weary of warring and 
impatiently longing for peace. 



THE COSTLY BENEFITS OF WAR 



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The Costly Benefits of War 



War in itself is an unmitigated evil — the greatest curse 
that could befall a nation. Even when justified on the 
ground of national life and in defense of fundamental truth 
and justice, its immediate effects are calamitous and viewed 
in themselves are fraught with untold disaster and distress. 
The actual loss of men, representing the youth and vigor and 
promise oi the world ; the more or less permanent impair- 
ment of the soldiery through wounds and diseases incident 
to war; the incalculable waste of the raw materials and the 
finished products of a nation's activity; the conversion of 
the industries of a people to purely destructive ends; the 
limitless legacy of loss and sorrow to succeeding genera- 
tions ; the intensive development of the military temper and 
all the baser passions of the race; the incentive to civic dis- 
order and the reign of riot, the devastation of homes and the 
violation of the most cherished ideals of life — these are the 
tragic resultants that follow in the wake of war and cast the 
course of civilization backward toward the darkest ages of 
history. When such a conflict assumes the proportions of 
the world-war just closed, the attendant evils are so appall- 
ing as to stagger the imagination and institute the inquiry 
as to whether life under such possibilities is worth the price 
of blood and treasure that is paid for it, and woe to that 
people who take the field with sword in hand, save as they do 
so by a manifest mandate from Heaven. 

That any results of value can ensue from such a regime 
as this would seem to be an impossibility. It is just here, 
however, that we note a law of history and indeed of Provi- 
dence that offers an answer and is in the nature of a justifi- 
cation. It is the law of sacrifice and struggle in order that 
the highest ends of individual and national life may be se- 
cured. When the struggle is in a worthy cause, for the 
highest ends, the results are correspondingly valuable, and 
even when the cause is an ignoble one, unjustified in its 
origin and method, Providence intervenes to make the 
wrath of men praise Him. All the greatest reforms in 

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1 6 Th'k Costly Ben:EFits of War 

church and state have been reached through blood and fire. 
In the g-reat Reformations of England and Continental Eu- 
rope, in such imposing Revolutions as the French and the 
American of 1789 and 1776; in the Napoleonic campaigns 
and the Civil War of our ov^n land, benefits have accrued 
despite the countless cost involved and the general move- 
ment of the world has received impetus and progressive 
force. Some of these costly benefits may be cited. 

1. The Spirit of Patriotism is intensified. National loy- 
alty has never been so signally illustrated as in the late war, 
the great body of the people recognizing at the outset the 
rightful claim of their respective governments to their 
whole-hearted allegiance. This supreme devotion to the 
nation's interests increased as national peril and need in- 
creased, so that ample assurance was thus furnished that the 
rank and file of the body politic could be relied upon to meet 
all emergencies and ensure the final triumph of the govern- 
ment over all its foes. Here and there, it is conceded, were 
heard undoubted notes of disaffection and a readiness and 
purpose to oppose, as far as possible, the official and military 
policies of the government, but such a disloyal temper was 
never sufficient to lessen or impair the patriotic spirit of the 
people in the main. Indeed, the effect was rather to stimu- 
late national devotion and arouse an indignant protest 
against the attitude and action of all disaffected agencies. 

2. The Spirit of Sacrifice is intensified. This has been so 
unprecedented as to excite the admiration of the civilized 
world, — ^sacrifice of life and health and home and native 
land, of exacting business interests and all that pertains to 
social well being. Whatever the hardships of military life, 
on the march and in the trenches, behind the lines and at the 
front, these were willingly endured for the country's good. 
Nor was this spirit of sacrifice confined to the soldiery who 
actually participated in the camp life and the conflict of 
battle, but equally fully exhibited on the part of those who 
voluntarily surrendered to the nation those whom they most 
dearly loved and on whom in numberless instances they were 
dependent for sustenance and fellowship and service. We 
speak of the supreme sacrifice, as the sacrifice of life, and 
yet this side that final offering on the altar of country, there 



The: Costly Benefits of War 17 

were untold instances of an order of sacrifice well nigh as 
crucial, and alike expressive of an absolute surrender of self 
for a noble cause and a high ideal. 

3. The spirit of Generosity and Service has been ex- 
pressed on a scale so conspicuous and colossal as to make 
quite insignificant all previous records along this line un> 
stinted and unceasing contribution to all the multiform ob- 
jects incident to such a gigantic struggle— the calls for aid 
being as insistent and urgent as the world-wide character 
of the war itself. Never has philanthropy assumed such 
spacious proportions and been applied to such divers in- 
terests. The superb ministries of the Red Cross organiza- 
tion on the field and in the wards of the hospital ; the efforts 
to afford such instruction for the wounded as to enable them 
to resume, in part at least, the ordinary and essential voca- 
tions of life; the offering of time and means and per- 
sonal effort for the restoration of desolated homes- the 
various activities of a strictly moral and religious nature 
whereby the army and navy might be maintained at their 
highest efficiency, and the numberless ways in which a help- 
ing hand might be given to relieve distress and inspire new 
hope and cheer, all this has marked an order of genuine 
philanthropy which is without parallel and which has done 
much to divest war of its terrors and horrors and evince 
the possibility of educing good out of evil. 

4- The Spirit of Unity in sentiment and service has 
been one of the rarest benefits of the war— by the influence 
of which the masses and the classes have met on common 
groundas never before, by which all unnatural distinctions 
in the civil and social order have been obliterated or lessened 
and what may be called the democratization of the world 
has ensued. The high and low, the cultured and the 
illiterate, the pauper and the prince, the priest and the parish- 
ioner, have struggled and suffered together. All conven- 
tional distinctions— civic and ecclesiastical, have disap- 
peared, as all classes and orders have been mobilized for 
united service. Never again, it would seem, can the old 
regime of exclusiveness be effective, but as all men are 
created equal before the law and have been widely separated 
by agencies purely artificial and unjust, this original equal- 



1 8 The Costly Benefits of War 

ity must reassert itself with vastly increased efficiency and 
the blessings and benefits of civilized life be equally open to 
all sorts and conditions of men. This levelling process in 
the line O'f catholicity and unification of interest is in itself 
well worth the price of blood and treasure already paid and 
is full of promise for the future of the world. 

5. A further secondary result of war, applicable to that 
just ended is the cementing of friendship between France and 
America as, also, between America and England. Such a 
confirmation of Anglo-American and Franco-American 
unity, it is urged, would be a factor second to no other in 
securing general international comity and maintaining gen- 
eral international peace, especially as to America and 
England. Such a confirmation of friendship would be sin- 
gularly significant and fraught with untold blessing. 

Such are some of the Costly Benefits of War, despite the 
essential curse of war itself, confirmed by all history and 
gradually evolved by the mysterious and gracious processes 
of that Providence that rules and overrules the destinies of 
men. 

What the nations have now left them as a legacy is — The 
Priceless Blessings of Peace^ — The Golden Age of Fruition, 
for which all antecedent history and all national struggle 
have been a preparation and to the rational enjoyment and 
fullest utilization of which the nations of the world are 
solemnly summoned. How best to enjoy and utilize these 
blessings is the practical problem of the hour, so as to fall 
in line with the primary purpose of providence regarding 
them and so- as to ensure the greatest benefit to the civilized 
world at large, — a problem for every separate nation and 
every separate citizen, if so' be the errors and evils of the 
past may be eliminated and the course of the world clearly 
determined toward an ever higher order of life and service. 



THE RETURN OF PEACE 



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The Return of Peace 



"The Day" so long and patiently awaited has at length 
dawned, irradiating a darkened world, not "The Day" of 
conflict as some anticipated and welcomed it, nor even 
"The Day" of Victory for the mere sake of victory over 
a nation's foes, but a day of disarmament and demobiliza- 
tion, a day of deliverance from the ravages and bitterness 
of war and the reinstatement of the pursuits and privileges 
of peace, when a people may once again come into its own 
and the normal processes of life be resumed. 

I. One of the greatest blessings of the Return of Peace 
is Peace itself, the sheer sense of relief from the devasta- 
tion and desolations of strife, the mere enjoyment of repose 
after the harassing disquietude and anxieties of war when 
the baser elements of human nature are relegated to the 
background and all the gentler expressions of life reassert 
themselves. There is a sense of untold satisfaction in the 
restoration of order and quiet procedure when life can be 
viewed and enjoyed in its essential realities and recom- 
penses. The experience is like to that of a storm-tossed 
mariner reaching at length a harbor of safety, or that of a 
worn out traveler enjoying refreshing rest after a long and 
dangerous journey, or that of a stricken sufferer reaching 
the period of convalescence and complete recovery. It is 
here that the distinction between the individual and the 
national is practically eliminated when an entire people in 
their collective capacity passes from a state of distressing 
unrest and alarm to the actual realization of rest. 

So distinctive and deep-seated has been this sense of 
relief, as the late titanic struggle closed, that one could 
almost hear the note of joy on the part of the nations thus 
enfranchised. It is a blessing whose value cannot be ex- 
pressed in language, too deeply imbedded in the recesses of 
a people's heart to be reducible to words, a radical restitu- 
tion of national life — a real renaissance of the national 
spirit and the national hope, imparting a new lease of cor- 
porate life, infusing new energy into all the functions of 

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22 The Return oe Peace 

national activity and opening up such an outlook for 
national endeavor and enterprise as to stimulate every dor- 
mant capability and set the nation far ahead on the open 
highway of national progress. 

2. A more positive and objective result of Peace is the 
awakening of what might be called the Constructive spirit 
of a people, a making over again of a nation's structure and 
character, a building, as if anew, of the very foundations of 
a nation's life and in a manner more durable than ever. 

War is essentially destructive in its governing purpose, 
and the methods by which it is conducted. From first to last, 
its primary aim is the demolition of all that stands in the 
way of its advance. We speak, and rightly, of the waste of 
war. This is its ideal, to uproot all existing agencies and 
mark its track by an indiscriminate ruin. Whatever its 
ultimate ends may be in the defense of national life and 
interests and the realization of political, social or economic 
ends, its immediate aim is desolation and that only. 

Hence, the first and foremost call of the hour after peace 
is secured is that of Restoration and Reconstruction, a vig- 
orous process of Reformation, partly by way of recovering 
that which has been lost and partly by way of instituting 
a new and better order. Construction must be carried on 
concordant with reconstruction. Indeed the more positive 
process of building anew from the ground up must be em- 
phasized over any form of merely reparative work. For- 
mation must co-operate with and surpass mere reforma- 
tion, and the nation at large and the world at large be thus 
advanced to ever higher levels of endeavor and achieve- 
ment. It is one of the most significant and beneficent 
anomalies of life and strictly within the divine order of 
the world, that when the destructive processes of man or 
nature have had their dire way and done their worst and 
at length cease, the restorative and constructive processes 
at once assert themselves with redoubled vigor and with 
an intensity often in proportion to the destruction that has 
been wrought. 

Were it not for this benign law of Providence and his- 
tory, whereby these remedial agencies begin to act close 
upon the wake of devastation, the world would soon revert 



The Return oe Peace 23 

to chaos. How graciously and potently in the day of con- 
valescence the healing agencies of the body begin to act, so 
as to repair the waste of disease, reinvigorate the depleted 
system and awaken hope and joy in the sufferer's heart. 
Even so graciously and potently do a nation's restorative 
powers assert themselves when the struggle ceases and all 
the factors and forces of the national life are quickened with 
fuller function. Herein lie the responsibilities that the 
dawn of peace brings with it — ^that any people so delivered 
shall at once appreciate the meaning of its deliverance, take 
full advantage of the new opportunities thus offered, and 
address itself whole-heartedly to the duties and demands 
of the hour, acknowledging the presence of all the con- 
structive forces and co-operating with them in all their 
beneficent ends. It is largely by this principle that the char- 
acter of a people is tested, whether it utilizes or fails to 
utilize the privilege of the hour. 

Hence, The Perils of Peace, induced by the principle 
of Reaction, distinctive and pronounced in proportion to 
the intensity of the conflict that has closed. During the 
time that war prevails the nations engaged are in a state 
of unwonted tension. Every agency is at the limit of its 
activity under the ever-increasing stress of events. Normal 
processes have given place largely to abnormal conditions 
and entire peoples are the subjects of nervous energies 
aroused beyond all ordinary limits, in all the spheres of life 
— civic, industrial and social. The national pulse is beating 
at fever heat and the body politic is charged with a vitality 
that is unnatural and dangerous. From such a condition 
Reaction necessarily enters, and when it arises from such 
a world-wide catastrophe as the late war the results are 
ominous and often tragic, testing the very existence of any 
nation that is the subject of it. Hence, the variety of forms 
that such a reactionary movemient may take, assuming at 
one time the form of absolute anarchy or a protest against 
all established order, and at another expressing itself in a 
stolid and supine inactivity, blocking all the wheels of 
progress and suppressing every remnant of national ambi- 
tion and hope, while between these two extremes of revolu- 



24 The Return of Peace 

tion and an abject surrender of all national aspiration divers 
forms of evil assert themselves, such as national arrogance 
as a result of victory, national extravagance as the fruit of 
the waste of war, a development of an excessive economic 
rivalry among the nations in order to repair such waste ; a 
legacy of national and international hatred engendered by 
the habit of war, the infusion into civic life of a distinct 
militaristic temper; a distaste for the quiet and ordinary 
avocations of life as contrasted with the exciting activities 
of war — in a word, the dominance of the lower over the 
higher instincts of nature. Here lies the supreme obliga- 
tion in the history of all great struggles, — to utilize their 
best efforts and neutralize the possible attendant evils, and 
here is needed the best judgment of a nation's leaders and 
of the people at large to hold the nation to its highest ideals 
lest it lose the very ends for which the sacrifice and struggle 
have been made. Such are the perils even of a peace that is 
victorious, and when a nation as a result of unsuccessful 
war is compelled to sue for peace, such perils are indefinitely 
increased and are wont to- assume the most revolting and 
alarming forms, induced by the sheer desperation of defeat. 
It is thus clear beyond all question that the dominant 
duty of all peoples at the close of a national conflict is that 
of Conciliation and Reconciliation, if so be the inevitable 
evils of war as provocative of all the baser instincts may 
be reduced to the minimum and the better elements and 
functions of the human heart be encouraged to express 
themselves. On the part of the victorious people this should 
induce the suppression of all national vanity, and on the 
part of the conquered nation a rational submission to the 
arbitrament of arms. National arrogance and national 
resentment should alike be subordinate to an ever-growing 
desire to heal the spirit of dissension existing among former 
foes and return again to those conditions of international 
comity and fellowship which are the only guarantees of 
the world's progress. Nothing should more clearly mark 
the return of peace than the restoration of Good Will, — a 
League of Nations based on fraternity rather than political 
diplomacy and thus designed to contribute to the general 
good. 



THE NEW ERA 



(25) 



The New Era 



The era now at hand is indeed new, not only chronologi- 
cally as subsequent to antecedent eras, but in every phase 
and fimction of national and international life, and new 
not only as to those external changes which impress them- 
selves so vividly upon the mind of the most casual observer, 
but as to the hidden internal changes which affect the 
foundations and movements of life and of which all that is 
external is but the manifestation and expression. The very 
spirit of life has been changed — its motives and governing 
purpose, its ideals and aspirations, so that nations cannot 
develop along traditional lines nor cease to subserve simply 
traditional ends. In this era, more than ever before, it may 
truthfully be said that nations are born in a day and rise at 
once into newness of life and action. It is the Renaissance 
of the world. 

To the superficial and merely materialistic student of the 
world's life these changes are apt to be regarded as mainly 
industrial and commercial, inducing a new economic order 
by which the wealth of the world is to 'be increased and what 
one calls the comforts of civilization more widely diffused. 
As the origin of the late war, and of most wars, is said to 
be mainly economic, so their final purpose is regarded and 
as the struggle ends the victorious nation is busily engaged 
in summing up its monetary assets. The fact is that changes 
such as these are the least significant to the eye of the right- 
minded observer, the dominant inquiry being how the great 
underlying currents of the world's life are affected, its civic 
and social order, its educational and intellectual order, its 
moral and religious order — in a word, the real life of the 
peoples. Here, as nowhere else, the new era is to be studied 
and tested, and if failing in these respects to abide the test, 
it may be said to fail completely, for what the world is 
seeking is not its material enrichment, but its sound civic, 
mental and moral regeneration. Tragic and saddening 
beyond all conception as this world-wide conflict has been, 
it may be said that the price is scarcely too great, if so be 

(27) 



28 The New Era 

such a regeneration is the fruit of it, and it is on this issue 
that the heart of man is set and the hope of the world 
based. If this hope is realized the era at hand is only new 
in the highest conceivable sense, and happy is he who appre- 
ciating its character and possibilities is privileged to share 
in its fulfillment. 

Evidences already are clearly seen that the nations far 
and near are awaking to their mission and initiating meas- 
ures to utilize it. The heart of the world is stirred as never 
before, and despite all existing obstacles that must arise in 
connection with so radical a revelation, mankind is more 
hopeful than ever that order, civic and social, will eventually 
emerge, that the best elements of individual and national 
life will assert themselves and the dawn of this new day 
steadily advance to its meridian. 

As to how these promising results may best be reached 
without unduly disturbing established order, so that reno- 
vation may not degenerate into revolution, this is the prac- 
tical question of the time. 

Without entering into the details of this onward and 
upward movement as to just what these new features should 
be in society and government, in mind and morals, there are 
two suggestions of movement that may be urged. First of 
all, these changes should be gradual and not violent, and 
this just because they are so radical. The transition from 
prior conditions to a new and distinctive order must ob- 
serve the law of any beneficent transition by gradational 
process. Great transitions are in their nature inclined to 
rapid movement because transitional, and easily pass the 
bounds of reason and take on the form of revolution. Such 
a tendency is apparent at this hour, as the very foundations 
of society are shaken and the best judgment of peoples is 
needed to withstand the tendency to violent revolt and insti- 
tute a process of slow and sober adjustment. History is 
replete with signal illustration of the lack of this steadying 
guidance in the midst of violent disorder and confusion. 
Never has such an ordered movement been more urgently 
needed than it is now, and never has there been such a de- 
mand for the wisdom of the wisest, if so be the very ends 
that are sought may not be thwarted. Leaders of the people 



The; New Era 29 

and the people themselves must co-operate with this stabil- 
izing process and make haste slowly. 

A further and equally important suggestion is to the 
effect that whatever the new order of things may bring to 
the world at large, the essential values of the older order 
must be preserved. Here is a crucial problem — to preserve 
the best of that which is old and secure the best of that 
which presents itself as new. This salient principle applies 
equally fully in all departments of judicial and interna- 
tional life — the principle of a valid conservatism and a valid 
liberalism by which the past and the future are vitally 
linked, by which bigoted traditionalism and an equally 
bigoted radicalism are alike rebuked and the wholesome 
unity and continuity of world progress preserved. In the 
application of this principle to social and philanthropic 
problems, to the pressing problems of governmental polity, 
to the vastly important question of educational reform and 
to all the possible changes in the sphere of the religious and 
ecclesiastical, care must be taken to engraft the new order 
on that portion of the old stock which is essential and vital. 

It is gratifying to note that events are shaping in this 
direction. Modifications of the social order are studied in 
the light of what is best in past conditions, changes in the 
constitutions of states, in curricula of institutions of learn- 
ing and in the creeds and confessions of all churches are 
contemplated in deference to what has been already proved 
to be desirable and serviceable. It is by this method and 
this only that the new era will be beneficent and lasting — a 
safe and genuine attempt to move the modern world a little 
further on along the line of an ever advancing progress. 

It is at this point that the outlook is promising and the 
interests involved inspiring, summoning every lover of his 
country and his kind to take his part in the inspiring service, 
if so be an order of life among the nations may be ushered 
in for which the world has long been waiting. It is in the 
light of such an issue that the redemption of the world 
draweth nigh. 



THE NEW ERA IN HIGHER EDUCATION 



(30 



The New Era in Higher Education 



Higher education is distinguished here from secondary 
education, pertaining specifically to the college and the 
university. 

Education, in common with all other forms of human 
activity, has been distinctly affected by the late war, and is 
also affected, and chiefly so, by all those changing conditions 
which mark what we call the progress of the race from 
higher to higher levels, a progress induced by the natural 
law of change, by the sheer stress and demands of modern 
life, and which, as such, is as inevitable as the movement of 
the tides. 

The new era is primarily one of modification, a modifica- 
tion of means and ends, and, in some instances, of what 
have been regarded as fundamental and abiding principles. 
By such a modification the relation of the primary and sub- 
ordinate may at times be reversed, emphasis may be laid on 
methods and aims hitherto viewed as unimportant ; the old 
and the new may interchange positions — in fine there may be 
induced a recasting of the existing educational status to meet 
the issue of the hour. Events are moving more rapidly than 
ever, the world at large is more alert and restless than ever ; 
too much so to await the slow processes of the past. 

The conditions, therefore, that confront those who have 
most at heart the highest advance of the race and who will 
be most instrumental in securing it are nothing less than 
critical and demand the highest order of judgment. The 
sphere of religious thought and life apart, there is no prov- 
ince in which such a problem is more pronounced and 
important than in that of education, especially in its higher 
forms, and none in which the call of the times is more 
imperative and urgent. 

The forms which such a problem may assume have differ- 
ent phases and values, such as : 

The true relation of the cultural and vocational; of the 
general and the special ; the liberal and the technical ; of the 
classical and scientific; of the ancient and the modem. 

(33) 



34 I'he New Era in Higher Education 

Shall the humanities, so called, retain their place of primacy? 
Shall liberal education mean in the future what it has meant 
sinct the Revival of Learning? What is the relative value 
of the arts and sciences, and in the arts themselves the rela- 
tive value of the Fine and the Useful Arts, and in the 
sciences, that of Pure and Applied Science? It is clear that 
the problem involves the entire content or subject-matter of 
education, the question of its best methods as a pedagogic 
training and its ultimate purpose in deference to existing and 
future needs. The problem is so interesting as to be fasci- 
nating, and so difficult as to be embarrassing, and in any 
discussion and resolution will vitally affect the general 
collegiate and university life of the modern world. A sug- 
gestion or two may be of service. 

A. First of all, it is vital to maintain that no essential 
antagonism exists or should be allowed to exist between any 
two of these contrasted methods, such as the Cultural and 
Vocational, the General and Special. They are to be viewed 
as co-ordinate and interactive, possessing with all their con- 
trasts, elements in common, and in the end co-operating to 
the complete education of the student. Differences may 
exist, but not antagonisms, an honest effort being made to 
minimize the differences and emphasize the features in com- 
mon. Great harm has been done in this discussion in that 
rival camps have been instituted, bitter opposition engendered 
and a method of controversy adopted which prevents at the 
outset impartial argument and an ingenuous effort to reach 
a valid result just to all concerned. Competing interests 
need not be conflicting interests, and exponents of different 
educational policies may be surprised to find as to how much 
they can severally agree. The question is one of relative 
value and proportion, as demanded by those new and unfore- 
seen conditions which make some modification imperative. 

B. It may further be suggested : that the essential prin- 
ciples and features of the existing regime should as far as 
possible be maintained — the cultural, general, liberal, classi- 
cal and ancient, but not in the exact form and measure in 
which they have hitherto obtained. It is just here that the 
valid principle of concession or compromise enters as a 
feasible factor — a principle clearly illustrated in all the great 



The New Era in Higher Education 35 

reforms of history, that concession being granted bv reason 
of the manifestly new developments of thi time 

To msist here upon the hyper-conservative theory that 
traditional educational methods should prevail because tra- 
ditional, IS as dangerous and illogical an extreme as to insist 
upon their complete elimination. Every form and phase of 
human activity has changed, and he has in hand a difficult 
problem who contends that in the sphere of education this 
inevitable law is inoperative. Education, in its very nature 
and Ideal, is a process, a development, and as such involves 
in Its very conception, the necessity and desirability of modi- 
hcation to adjust it to ever- varying needs. 

There is such a thing as educational modernism as im- 
portant in Its place as modernism in the sphere of reliHous 
thought and life. Education must not only be held back 
to date m deference to the past, but brought down to date in 
deference to the present and the future, and these results are 
not incompatible. 

C. The question of primary purport, therefore, that here 
emerges is: What are the specific changes desired and 
needed, and where are they to begin and end to meet this call 
for adjustment? 

Here is an open field for wide and reasonable differences 
of opinion among those who are seeking a tenable and prac- 
ticable policy, and there is no doubt that safe and satisfactory 
conclusions will be reached by the temperate exchange of 
views and the spirit of mutual surrender of opinion when 
demanded. It is here that the classical controversy reaches 
Its acute stage, and it is at this moment the dominant ques- 
tion, a question involving, it is urged, the classical languages 
only, and not their literatures, and the languages themselves 
in their original text. Classical authors, it is justly said, 
may be profitably studied in translation, quite fully enough 
to obtain a classical outlook and imbibe the classical spirit, 
and the literature of the ancient languages may be enjoyed 
quite apart from specific linguistic study of grammar and 
text. This is a point urgently pressed by the advocates of 
modification as to classical requirements and would release 
a large amount of time and space for other studies. More- 
over, as to the study of the languages themselves, a valid 



3^ The New Era in Higher Education 

distinction is made by many between the Greek and the 
Latin in relation to the needs of the average student, the 
reduction of the Greek being urged as more imperative than 
that of the Latin. By the time thus released the increasing 
demands of political, economic, historical, social and scien- 
tific studies, it is argued, could be safely met, as also the 
just claims of the Modern Languages of Continental 
Europe. 

In a word, herein lies a scheme, not of elimination, but 
of partial reduction in behalf of what may be called the 
modern order ; containing nothing radical or revolutionary, 
omitting nothing which the student may not secure if he 
desires, at least in modified measure, and thus co-ordinating 
in a sense the diverse demands of the conservative and the 
liberal schools. In some way or another, this insistent call 
of the new era must be heard and heeded. It will not be 
and cannot be suppressed; and he is a wise exponent of 
traditional education who appreciates the potency and the 
urgency of that call, and is willing to concede enough of the 
old regime to give a larger function to the new, and thus 
to unify the past and present. 

Though Mr. Huxley holds an extreme view when he 
insists that culture can be secured as fully from purely 
scientific studies as from literary and linguistic, it is also 
true that a comprehensive and satisfactory type of culture 
cannot be secured apart from adding to literature and 
language that particular element of education that comes 
from a knowledge of the industrial, as well as the liberal 
arts, of the great facts and truths, of history and social in- 
stitutions; of the study of physical nature and the political 
development of men and nations. Thus will the New Era 
in Higher Education interact with the Old Era, the Arts 
with the Sciences, literature and language with the daily 
life of the race; thus securing stability and ever increasing 
progress and best preparing the American undergraduate 
to take his place and do his part in the inspiring work of the 
modern world. 



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